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World|life|August 21, 2014 / 09:45 AM
Police say 47 arrested in latest Ferguson protest in U.S.

AKIPRESS.COM - tnzyl Police said Wednesday they had arrested 47 people during a night of protests in Ferguson, the Missouri town rocked by violence over the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager, AFP reports.

Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol said protesters threw bottles of water and urine at police towards the end of Tuesday night's protest in the St Louis suburb, prompting officers to intervene after an otherwise peaceful night.

"As of 1:00 am we have 47 arrests," he told a press conference, adding that police had also seized three guns from demonstrators.

Johnson stressed that unlike a protest Monday night, protesters did not fire guns at police and police refrained from using tear gas to break up the rally.

"Tonight we saw a different dynamic," he said.

Fears that another police shooting involving a knife-wielding male might renew tension failed to materialize, after successive nights of clashes with police in the town of Ferguson.

Ferguson has been ground zero of a renewed debate about race and strong-armed law enforcement in America since the August 9 fatal shooting in broad daylight of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is to visit Ferguson on Wednesday amid an ongoing federal investigation into possible civil rights violations.

A grand jury is meanwhile to begin Wednesday hearing witnesses to Brown's killing, amid calls for the police officer, Darren Wilson, to be put on trial for murder.

In another development, Brown's family is undertaking preparations for his funeral, which their lawyer said would take place on Monday.

Several hundred people returned to West Florissant Avenue on Tuesday, not far from where Brown fell, expressing their outrage and demanding that justice be done.

"Hands up, don't shoot!" they chanted with their hands up in the air, in what has become the signature slogan of Ferguson's frustration with its overwhelmingly white police department.

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